Archive for the ‘Social Upheaval’ Category

Northern Exposure…

Monday, May 5th, 2008

cadence weapon

BILLY X. SUNDAY says, “Tara Henley stand up!”

Me and my lady took a long weekend to visit Montreal. The rail fare was pretty damn cheap and you can’t beat the view on the train as you ride alongside the Hudson River due north. I kind of forgot about my cares as I peeped tiny upstate New York towns with farms and horses and the what not. The bucolic scenery had me in a daze until we arrived at the Canadian border. I was questioned by several customs officers about my business in Canada. I thought this was a joke on some “We already have enough Black people” type shit. Truth was that these niggas were holding a passenger manifest and on that printout it displayed my arrest record.

Damn. I thought these dudes were gonna send me back to NYC, but they figured that since my last conviction was in 1993 that I wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Shit done changed since September 11th, 2001. Everything done changed. The way we travel abroad, up to the music we listen to on our iPods. I was on some Native Tongues shit while walking around Montreal. It’s a backpacker city so I figured that I’d let some backpacker music be my soundtrack.

Montreal is an interesting city. It’s a lot more like America than its counterpart Toronto. Montreal is a lot dirtier than Toronto. You could eat off the ground in Toronto, not so much in Montreal. It felt like a college town, except niggas spoke French, and there weren’t any niggers. There was a handful of mulattos, but I didn’t see any real Black folks. You know, the kind that have DNA from two Black parents. The biggest rapper in Montreal was one of these halfBlack dudes (is anyone keeping score because lightskint is in the lead?). His rapper name is Cadence Weapon. I fucks with dude because he is on some Kid Cudi rhyme style. Like KanYe West and most pop rap acts nowadays you need to listen to sonn with shades on and a disco ball over your head. Still and all, this nigga rhymes better than Lil’ Wang every day of the week.

Cadence Weapon @ MySpace

Sometimes I fucks with rap dudes that don’t live in America. I got into this Nigerian cat from Brixton, England several years ago. Dude’s name is Ty Chijoke (score one for brownskin brothers). His album ‘Upwards’ featured live instruments played by Africans that used to tour with Fela Kuti. I know what your thinking. “But Sunday, don’t you HATE Africans for selling your great-great-grandparents to the white?” Yes, I do hate the Africans, but I love African music. Go figure. Fela Kuti is a fucking giant, and if you don’t know who he is you are definitely part of the problem with the world today. So as I was saying, I fucks with this cat Ty. This dude spits some real shit. Peep the track with him and Bahamadia on it.

Ty @ MySpace

I know I always speak of bringing a change to how we listen to rap and then becoming the change we want to bear witness to. There are artists that can give us that good food for our earlobes without preaching to us. Fuck with this cat Ty. He gets deep with his shit and the fact that he comes from Africa which is the most hardbody island next to England says a lot to me.

The Belles Toll For Thee…

Monday, May 5th, 2008

derby

When MICHAEL VICK comes home from prison someone should advise him to buy himself a few horse stables. You can kill, er, “put down” horses when they can no longer run. And PETA will call you a humanitarian too. Despite the fact that you drugged up the animal with steroids and hormones and prA’li even some cocaine in order for it to run harder, better, faster, stronger (no you know who).

I know these fools give those horses blow because I look at the horses’ nostrils and I realize that this is an animal that can handle that yayze. Its ridiculous to think of all the drugs that horses are subjected to in order to increase their level of competition for showcases like the Preakness, the Belmont Stakes, and of course, the Kentucky Derby. But you won’t see PETA coming to Churchill Downs with picket signs evar. I wonder why?

The fact still remains that you will get more prison time for killing a dog than you will for shooting a fusillade of fifty bullets at a Black man. The bells toll for the runner-up in this years’ Kentucky Derby, Eight Belles, the same way the bells tolled for SEAN BELL. All kinds of people will say that the killing was justified, but at the end of the day don’t act like it wasn’t murder.

Is all I’m sayin’.

Harlem On My Mind…

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

harlem

Folks in New York City stay fighting over real estate. It’s the old new racism + classism = supremacism. The reason being that most people don’t come up on property without playing at least one of those cards. I’m not saying that everybody that owns some dirt in NYC got it through carpetbagging or some such technique, but a lot of property was acquired that way.

While every borough in the city has their battlegrounds, none have as many as Manhattan. There are folks protesting the new zoning regulations in the lower east side, while in the newly minted triangle below canal (TriBeCa) the nouveau riche are opposed to the nightclubs and the people they attract. All these arguments pale in comparison to the upheaval that Harlem faces as the longtime residents (read: poor people) are being rapidly displaced.

harlem

Columbia University is attacking from the south side of Harlem via Morningside Heights as well as from the north side of Harlem using the footprint of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Some people want to slow Columbia’s roll because they feel like the longtime residents deserve a decision in the future of their neighborhood, while other people want to stop Columbia because they recognize that land is power and Columbia University is about to become a wealthy slumlord.

I’m ashamed to admit this but the people that live in Harlem have no title to the area’s development if they don’t own any property. That is just how the shit breaks down. Poor people are relegated to their skyward reservations. This is what I call high rise housing projects. Instead of sticking folks on vast, undeveloped acres like they did the native americans, they stacked acrea on top of acres until you had twenty-five floors. The arrangement is much easier to secure with police as well.

I found myself in Harlem on 125th Street the other evening and I almost didn’t recognize my surroundings. I imagine that this will be the same transformation I see on Fulton Street in another few years. I don’t mind upscale retail at all, just as long as I can find a spot to cop a pair of Dunks for $40 or less.

harlem

GOD Bless The Child That Got His Pwn…

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

lil man

Shorty man is my hero right now for how hard he goes in to get the cheese paste on his biscuit. Don’t even dream of telling sonn that he isn’t eating real cheese. He ain’t trying to hear that.

Shorty got so much shit in society working against him he don’t even know about. Even if he doesn’t end up as a Sean Bell statistic (makes no difference who fires the shots because they are all murderers) he will still have to overcome the fact that he was raised on cheese paste and breadstick biscuits made with hydrogenated oils.

GOD bless the child that got his pwn…

lil man

lil man

lil man

Don’t H8 Haiti by MAXINE

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

port au prince

Editor’s note: DP Dot Com’s resident rude gyal goes in on the politiricks of poverty and privilege.

I’m telling you now, don’t even fucking read this drop if you aren’t prepared to get angry. Do you know what the fuck is going on in Haiti? People are starving and dying and rioting in the streets over the rising costs of food, meanwhile back at the motherfucking ranch, President Bush was parading the Pope around as if all is well in the world of Hail Mary’s and evangelistic molestations instead of doing something concrete about it. So now I guess its all good for Catholics to starve to death as long as no one diddles around with their genitals?

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The poorest country on our side of the world and for quite some time, this was largely due to government corruption and an unstable economy, it wasn’t until a deal in 1986, that Haiti became the United States’ bottom bitch. After former dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier raided the treasury, Haiti received a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is basically a pool of rich ass heads of countries that have the dough to lend cash to other countries, opening a door for micromanagement and unrealistic views of democracy.

I don’t have to tell you that the United States is one of the richest countries in the world, making it easy to understand the strong influence in the IMF. The loan to Haiti was heavy, and I’m not just talking about the $24.6 million price tag. See, prior to this deal, there were strong protections to ensure Haiti’s place in a competitive agricultural market, making it difficult for other countries, specifically the US to sell its merchandise in Haiti. As a part of the deal, Haiti agreed to relax the tariff laws, making the market prime “real estate” if you will.

The President of the World Bank (right, you know his ass isn’t starving) cites the following reasons for the 141 percent increase in food costs.

  • Fuel costs (translation-the fucking war in Iraq. A barrel of oil costing $113 is gotdamn criminal)
  • Weather problems (translation-global warming)
  • Increased demand in China and India (translation-those motherfuckers need to stop having so many babies and pay some bills)
  • Biofuel from cereal crops (translation-Bio-fuel? I don’t even know what that means, seeing as how only a quarter of Haiti’s 2,500 miles of roads are paved, who is driving?)
  • This whole thing reads like a drug deal gone bad. Sure, Haiti has always been fucked up, bruised up, knifed up, and prone to a good Coup on any given day but the United States started this whole thing. By perpetuating the “rice war” it caused the country to compete with itself, meanwhile the imported “Miami rice” was monopolizing the whole market through larger quantities, poorer quality and cheaper prices. Subsidized rice importers are making upwards of $700 million a year on the strength of Haitian imports alone. This means the rice dealers are selling us their shit, and selling it to the Haitians too all the while jacking up the prices. We’re way too concerned with gas prices to pay attention to what’s on the other side of that welfare size bag of Uncle Bens though.

    This annoys the shit out of me. They will have us believe that even though there are a bunch of starving motherfuckers in this world, Haitian farmers, can’t produce sales. The truth is that the Haitians were hoodwinked and didn’t even realize it. By relaxing the tariff laws, Haiti swam right down into the belly of the beast. Why isn’t the US importing Haitian rice to deal equal? Oh, see, there are specific laws that prohibit the sale and distribution of rice not processed, bagged and shipped in the US. Surprised? Read the NAFTA Clauses.

    People can’t eat. They are burning tires in the streets in demonstrations of the burning pain of “Clorox,” the name Haitians have likened to the stinging feeling of emptiness and despair in their stomachs. Food. Who was it that said the United States is the only place where people hunt on a full stomach? This country is fucked up and if you didn’t know it before now, there isn’t a thing I can do to help you. Sure, some countries have done what they can but before you start with that ‘benefit of the doubt’ bullshit, the $200 million in UN aid Bush pledged, aside from not going to the most affected areas, all of the food and supplies purchased with that money is siphoned through US products, merchants and distributers, making it only about half that amount to be divided through the hunger drenched countries.

    When do we get mad? We stood by and watched Kenya burn, all the while a shady deal was being brokered behind closed doors. We forgave President Clinton for ignoring Darfur. We watched our brothers and sisters, our people drown when the levees broke and the White House gloated over a “heck of a job.” We saw our grandmothers stand in line, their eyes shining with pride at completing the oldest form of citizenship, only to have their vote stripped away by the dickless sons of bitches who are supposed to represent our interests. We cheered on the Jena 6 and then forgot those motherfuckers when they couldn’t even wear a damn suit to the BET Awards.

    I don’t know the solution, but I’m sure that eating less and driving less has something to do with it.

    I stay woke. Believe that.

    Word to Samuel Dalembert.